Henry Eriksson, Olympic champion athlete, born 23
January 1920 - died 8 January 2000
Obituary by Steven Downes for IAAF
Sweden had never won an Olympic medal of any sort at 1,500 metres before the 1948 London Games, but their neutrality had perhaps given their athletes an advantage over competitors from other nations who had suffered the privations of the second world war when the sportsmen and women of the world gathered at Wembley Stadium in late July for the first global festival of sport for 12 years. Henry Eriksson, who has died, aged 79, grasped his opportunity and remains the only Swede ever to win the Blue Riband of Olympic track events.
Eriksson was possibly the least favoured of his three countryman in the final on that rain-sodden afternoon. Two Swedes, Günder Hägg, and Arne Andersson, had comprehensively re-worked the statistics books between 1942 and 1945, setting 14 world records between them at distances from 1,500m to two miles, in a rivalry which Britain’s Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett would recreate three decades later. In fact, it was Hagg’s 4min 01.4sec mile nine-year-old world record which Roger Bannister would famously break in 1954.
This was the era of strict amateurism in Olympic sport, and Hägg and Andersson had been banned from the Olympics after allegations of professionalism. In their absence, the favourite going into the Olympic final, therefore, was Lennart Strand, who a year earlier in Malmo had equalled Hägg’s 1,500m world record, with 3:43.0, beating Eriksson by 1.4sec in the process. It seemed that Eriksson and Gosta Bergkvist were only really there to help Strand, their team mate, win the gold.
The 1948 Olympics were characterised by the austerity of the times - they were dubbed the Ration Book Games - but the sporting endeavours did much to brighten post-war London. According to the official British Olympic Association report, edited by Lord Burghley, "In many ways, the 1,500 metres was the event from which most excitement was expected at the Games... Unfortunately, a downpour in the early hours of the afternoon made an Olympic record unlikely and the race itself started in heavy rain and on a sodden track". There were no all-weather tracks half a century ago: Wembley’s running track was made of cinders gathered from nearby rail yards.
Into the final lap, and Eriksson and Strand had broken away from their 10 rivals, with Eriksson coming off the final bend with a three-yard lead which he held to the tape for his first ever win over Strand, in 3min 49.8sec, with Willem Slijkhuis, of Holland, third.
Eriksson had started running at the Gefle IF club, where Hägg was a training partner. In 1946, Eriksson won the silver at 1,500m at the European championships. His running career ended barely a year after his Olympic success - the realities of life meant that amateur athletes had to earn their keep in proper jobs. A fireman by profession, Eriksson shared in four relay world records at 4x1,500 and 4xmile with three other clubmates who were also firefighters - a feat never likely to be matched in the 21st century.
